RAID ON A GEORGIA RAILWAY.

301

General Buell. He had proposed the expedition to Buell at Nashville, and that officer directed General Mitchel, then at Murfreesboro, to furnish him with the means for carrying it out.' Mitchel did so with alacrity, for it promised to be of vast service to him in executing his designs against the Confederates beyond the Tennessee River; and that band of young men left in detachments on their perilous errand at about the time when that daring general commenced his march for Alabama. They passed within the Confederate lines at Wartrace, on the Nashville and Chattanooga railway, thirteen miles from Murfreesboro, traveling on foot as Confederate citizens making their way from oppression in Kentucky to freedom in Georgia. In this disguise they went over the rugged Cumberland mountains. Most of them met at Chattanooga, on the day that Mitchel took possession of Huntsville. Some, who had arrived sooner, had gone by railway to Marietta, in Georgia, the final rendezvous of the party before commencing operations. On the same evening the whole party were at the latter place.

a April 11, 1862.

The designated point at which to begin their bold raid on the Georgia State road was at Big Shanty, eight miles above Marietta, and a short distance from the foot of the Great Kenesaw Mountain, where several regiments of Confederate troops were stationed. With an early train the next morning, all but two of the party, who were accidentally left behind, started for that place. While the conductor and engineer were at breakfast, the raiders uncoupled the engine and three empty box-cars from the passenger cars, and started at full speed up the road,2 leaving behind them wonderers who could scarcely believe the testimony of their own eyes. On they went with the fleetness of the wind, answering all questions satisfactorily, where they were compelled to stop, with the assurance that it was a powder-train for Beauregard. After going five miles on their journey, they cut the telegraph wires and picked up about fifty cross-ties. Before reaching Adamsville, at a curve on the summit of a high embankment, they tore up the rails of the road, and placed some of the ties in such position on the bank that a passing train was hurled off and down the precipice. At this point Andrews said, exultingly, "Only one more train to pass, boys, and then we will put our engine to full speed, burn the bridges after us, dash through Chattanooga, and on to Mitchel at Huntsville."

But more than one train had to be passed before they could commence their destructive work; and just as they had begun it, well up toward Calhoun, they were made to desist and flee by the sound of the whistle of a pursuing train. When this came to the break in the road just mentioned, the engineer of the train they had passed, made acquainted with the circumstances, reversed his engine, and it became a pursuer. Then occurred one of the most thrilling races on record. Both engines were put at full speed, and away they went, thundering along, to the amazement of the inhabitants,

Shadrack, Samuel Slavens, Samuel Robinson, John Scott, W. W. Brown, William Knight, J. R. Porter. Mark Wood, J. A. Wilson, M. J. Hawkins, John Wollam, D. A. Dorsey, Jacob Parrott, Robert Buffum, William Bensinger, William Reddick, E. H. Mason, William Pettinger.

1 Letter of General Buell to the adjutant-general, August, 1968.

2 Andrews, the leader, W. W. Brown, and William Knight, had taken position on the locomotive; Brown being the engineer, while J. A. Wilson, mounted on one of the box-cars, acted as brakesman.

302

CAPTURE AND EXECUTION OF RAIDERS.

who had no conception of the urgency of the errand of both. That of the pursued, having the less burden, was fleetest, but its time was consumed by stopping to cut telegraph wires and tear up rails. The latter, and also ties, were cast upon the track; but very soon the pursuers were too close to allow the pursued to do this, or to allow them to take in a supply of fuel and water. Their lubricating oil became exhausted; and, such was the speed of the machine, that the brass journals on which the axles revolved were melted. Fuel failing, the fugitives despaired; and, when within fifteen miles of Chattanooga, Andrews ordered them to leave the train, and every man to seek his own safety. They jumped from the train while it was in April 12, motion, and fled for shelter to the tangled forests of Georgia, around the sinuous Chickamauga Creek."

1862.

Notice of this chase had been telegraphed to Chattanooga, and produced great consternation. A stupendous man-hunt was at once organized. Rewards were offered; every ford, ferry, cross-road, and mountain pass was picketed; and thousands of horsemen and foot soldiers and citizens, and several blood-hounds, scoured the country in all directions. The whole party were finally captured and imprisoned; and thus ended one of the most adventurous incidents in history.' Twelve of them, after being confined at Chattanooga, were taken to Knoxville for trial, and kept in the iron cages there in which Brownlow and his friends had suffered, in the county jail.' Andrews, the leader, soon afterward escaped from the prison at Chattanooga, but, after intense suffering on the shores and little islands of the Tennessee River, was re-captured, taken to Atlanta with eight of his comrades, and

was there hanged without trial. Seven. of those who were taken to Knoxville had been tried by a court-martial as spies, when the cannon of General Mitchel, thundering near Chattanooga, broke up the court, and the prisoners, against whom there was not a particle of evidence to support the charge, were soon afterward conveyed to Atlanta. After a brief confinement, the seven who had been arraigned at Knoxville were taken out and hanged. Eight of those bold and patriotic young men thus gave their lives to their country. Eight of their companions afterward escaped from confinement, and six were exchanged as prisoners of war in March, 1863. To each of the survivors of that raid, the Secretary of War afterward presented a medal of honor. When the writer visited the National cemetery at Chatta

3

1 The adventure commanded the admiration of both parties. "It was the deepest laid scheme, and on the grandest scale," said an Atlanta newspaper, on the 15th of April, "that ever emanated from the brains of any number of Yankees." Judge Holt, in an official report, said: "The expedition, in the daring of its conception, had the wildness of a romance, while, in the gigantic and overwhelming results it sought, and was likely to accomplish, it was absolutely sublime."

2 See page 37.

3 These were, Andrews, Campbell, G. D. Wilson, Ross, Shadrack, Stevens, Robinson, and Scott. This medal was precisely like that presented to naval heroes. Instead of an anchor at the connective between the medal and the ribbon, there was an eagle surmounting crossed cannon, and some balls.

BATTLE AT CHATTANOOGA.

303

nooga, in May, 1866, he saw, in the cave that forms the receiving vault,' seven coffins, containing the remains of the seven young men who were hanged at Atlanta, and which had lately been brought from that city for re-interment.?

Before General Buell's arrival, General Mitchel had made an effort to seize Chattanooga. His force was too small to effect it, for Kirby Smith, commanding the Confederates in East Tennessee, was skillful, active, and watchful. Mitchel had asked for re-enforcements, but they were not afforded. Finally, General Negley, three days after his successful attack on Adams, near Jasper, having made his way rapidly over the rugged ranges of the Cumberland Mountains, suddenly appeared opposite Chattanooga. It was on the morning of the 7th of June when he arrived. Toward evening he had heavy guns in position; and for two hours he cannonaded the town and the Confederate works on Cameron's Hill and at its base. The guns of his enemy were silenced; and that night the inhabitants fled from the town. During the darkness Smith was re-enforced, and some of his infantry took positions to annoy Negley greatly. The latter opened his batteries again at nine o'clock, and before noon the Confederates had all been driven from the town and their works, and had commenced burning railway bridges, eastward of Chattanooga, to impede a pursuit. Considering the inferiority of his numbers, and the approach of re-enforcements for Smith, Negley prudently withdrew. Reporting to the military governor of Tennessee, he said, "The Union people in East Tennessee are wild with joy."

Here, it now seems, was presented a golden moment in which to accomplish great results, but it was not improved. With a few more regiments, Negley might have captured and held Chattanooga; and Buell and Mitchel could doubtless have marched into East Tennessee with very little resistance, and so firmly established the National power there that it might not have been broken during the remainder of the war. But General Buell would not consent to such movement, even when the thunder of Negley's cannon at Chattanooga made the Confederates in all that region so fearful, that they were ready to abandon every thing at the first intimation of an advance of their adversary. See how precipitately they fled from Cumberland Gap, their "Gibraltar of the mountains," and the fortified heights around it, when, ten days after the assault on Chattanooga, General George W. Morgan, with a few Ohio and Kentucky troops, marched against it from Powell's Valley. Twenty miles his soldiers traveled that day, climbing the Cumberland Mountains, dragging their cannon up the precipices by block and tackle, and skirmishing all the way without losing a man. They were cheered by rumors that the foe had fled. At sunset they were at the main works, and the flags of the Sixteenth Ohio and Twenty-second Kentucky were floating over those fortifications in the twilight. The Confederate rear-guard had departed four hours before; and the whole force had fled so hastily that they left almost every thing behind them. They had been supplied with food chiefly by plunderers of the Union

1 This cave and the National cemetery will be considered hereafter.

a Jan. 18, 1862.

2 For a minute account of the daring adventures of Andrews and his party of young soldiers, see a wellwritten volume from the pen of one of them (Lieutenant William Pettinger, of the Second Ohio), entitled, Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railroad Adventure.

304

CAPTURE OF CUMBERLAND GAP.

people. They saw a prospect of a sudden cessation of that supply, so they fled while a way of escape was yet open.

The cautious Buell and the fiery Mitchel did not work well together, and the latter was soon called to Washington City and assigned to the command of the Department of the South, with his head-quarters at Hilton Head, leaving his troops in the West in charge of General Rousseau. For a short

D

B

CUMBERLAND GAP AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.1

time afterward there was a lull in the storm of war westward of the Alleghany Mountains, but it was the precursor of a more furious tempest. During that lull, let us observe and consider events on the Atlantic coast, along the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Lower Mississippi.

1 Cumberland Gap is a cleft in the Cumberland Mountains, five hundred feet in depth, and only wide enough at the bottom in some places for a roadway. It forms the principal door of entrance to southeastern Kentucky from the great valley of East Tennessee, and during the war was a position of great military importance. It was very strongly fortified by the Confederates at the beginning of the contest, and supporting works were constructed on all of the neighboring heights. The relative position of these, their names, and a general outline of the mountains at the Gap, and in the vicinity, are seen in the above topographical sketch, by Dr. B. Howard, of the United States Army, from the western side. A small force, well provisioned, might have held the Gap against an immense army.

EXPLANATION.-A, Fort State corner; B, a fort not named; C, Fort Colonel Churchill; D, the Gap; E, Fort Colonel Rains; F, Fort Colonel Mallory; G, G, G, G, stockades and rifle-pits; I, Lewis's Gap; L, Fort Colonel Hunter; M, Kentucky road through the Gap; O, Baptists' Gap; P, Earthworks then recently constructed.

EXPEDITION AGAINST NEW BERNE.

305

CHAPTER XII.

OPERATIONS ON THE COASTS OF THE ATLANTIC AND THE GULF OF MEXICO.

E left General Burnside in Albemarle Sound, after the capture of Roanoke Island and the operations at Elizabeth City, Edenton, and Plymouth,' preparing for other conquests on the North Carolina coast. For that purpose he concentrated his forces, with the fleet now in command of Commodore Rowan (Goldsborough having been ordered to Hampton Roads), at Hatteras Inlet. New Berne, the capital of Craven County, at the confluence of the rivers Trent and Neuse, was his first object of attack."

a 1862.

His troops

The land and naval forces left Hatteras Inlet on the morning of the 12th of March, and at sunset the gun-boats and transports anchored off the mouth of Slocum's Creek, about eighteen miles from New Berne, where Burnside had determined to make a landing. numbered about fifteen thousand. The landing was begun at seven o'clock the next morning,' under cover of the gun-boats; and so eager March 18. were the men to get ashore, that many, too impatient to wait for the boats, leaped into the water, waist deep, and waded to the land. Then they pushed on in the direction of New Berne, in a copious rain, dragging their heavy cannon, with great difficulty and fatigue, through the wet clay, into which men often sank knee deep. The head of the column was within a mile and a half of the Confederate works at sunset, when it halted and bivouacked. During the night the remainder of the army came up in detachments hour after hour, meeting no resistance. The gun-boats meanwhile had moved up the river abreast the army, the flag-ship Delaware leading. A shore-battery opened upon her at four o'clock in the afternoon, but was soon quieted by her reply.

The main body of the Confederates, under the command of General Branch, consisted of eight regiments of infantry and five hundred cavalry, with three batteries of field-artillery of six guns each. These occupied a line of intrenchments extending more than a mile from near the river across the railway, supported by another line, on the inland flank, of rifle-pits and detached intrenchments in the form of curvettes and redans, for more than a mile, and terminating in a two-gun redoubt. On the river-bank and cover

1 See Chapter VI. pages 170 to 175, inclusive.

2 New Berne was a point of inuch military importance. It was near the head of an extensive and navigable arm of the sea, and was connected by railway with Beaufort harbor at Morehead City, and Raleigh, the capital of the State.

Among them were six naval howitzers that Rowan put ashore, under Lieutenant R. S. McCook, to assist in the attack.

VOL. II.-20